What is Belok?

This is a question I've been asked many times, and the answer is never as exciting or creative as you would think.

No, it is not "B-Lock".

And no, it isn't Baelog from World of Warcraft. (though embarassingly enough, I wasted 2 months of my life on that game)

It is pronounced "Beh - Lock".

Translated from Russian, it means "egg white". Of course you're wondering why in the hell I would name myself something so trivial and un-meaningful. Well, the whole "egg white" thing was a surprise to me as well, and turns out to just be a random coincidence.

Belok is a name I randomly made up back when I was a 12-year old computer nerd who was obsessed with magic, dragons, and videogames. It was the name of my character in nearly every game I played, ranging from Terris, Baldur's Gate, Asheron's Call, and World of Warcraft. A little disappointing of a backstory, eh? But it does get deeper than that.

As a kid, whether or not I knew it, I was obsessed with "the grind". Poker players are most aware of the grind, and it applies to videogames just as much as it does poker.

"The Grind" is a term used to describe boring, repetitive work that is necessary to move forward in whatever field you happen to be working. Work is a grind, Poker is a grind, and in many RPG video games, leveling up and gaining gold/experience are also a big fat grind. For most of my adolescent years I was living the grind. Killing thousands of monsters so I could get to the next level, and then kill some bigger monsters...to get to the next level...to kill some even bigger monsters.

Now that I've grown up a bit, videogame gold and experience are much less appealing to me, and money is what moves me to excel.

As much of a massive waste of time as those games seem, my strong math background and undescribable life-long addiction to "The Grind" are what molded me into a pretty damn good poker player. It requires unbelievable patience, discipline, and the will to sit and play for hours and hours on end to achieve a goal that can seem to only move farther away.

Belok is the character that fights through the grind. Even after the 20-buyin downstreaks over weeks of hard work, Belok fights on and keeps moving forward. Sure, it's cheesy. But over the years, I've put in thousands and thousands of hours as Belok and the fight still continues. Whether it be points, credits, experience, gold, or a good ol' American dollar - Belok is going to do what he needs to get his share. And that's why I still use the name I randomly pulled out of my ass as a prepubescent computer geek.

This is a blog about myself and my grind in this world. Belok is the hero of this story, and in the end, the hero needs to win.